You don’t need motivation.
Sure, it can be helpful. It can serve as the spark you need to ignite the flame. However, once the flame is lit, motivation will not keep your inferno going.
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How many motivated people do you see on social media that are “starting today”? But then those same people tend to be “starting today” every other week.
So many people are motivated to make a change or start something new. Then, maybe they do, maybe they don’t. But even if they do, they don’t see it all the way through and end up at another job that they hate or start some new fad diet once again.
Motivation is good to get the ball rolling, but as soon as the terrain shifts to uphill, the motivation dies, and your ball comes to a screeching halt.
What I want you to understand is that being motivated is great. But habits are what will progressively propel you to the next level of success in anything.
You see, good habits are just as difficult to break as bad habits. What you need to do is stay disciplined enough to do the hard work consistently, especially when you don’t feel like it, to turn that new action into a new habit.
You won’t be motivated every day, so you’ll need to develop enough discipline to step forward on a daily basis.
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You’ll need discipline to get to bed on time.
To get up early.
To put in the physical work.
To eat well.
To work on your business.
To read, to become a better human, to build better relationships, to sharpen your skills…
Every. Single. Day.
In his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey discusses the importance of being proactive rather than reactive.
People who are reactive react to external circumstances and factors and typically blame the external for their issues and position in life.
For example, “I can’t work out because I don’t have the time.” We all know that’s total bullshit, but people make that excuse all the time. Their mindset is that they can’t do anything about their schedule, so they just can’t get a training session in.
Proactive people, on the other hand, will make the time.
They’ll look internally and take full responsibility for everything in their life, including the way they respond to unfortunate situations, like a disability or accident. They understand that even when they can’t fully control something, they can control the way they respond to it.
If you want to live the life that you say you do, a life of better health and physical fitness with more meaningful work and relationships, then you need to take full responsibility for everything going on in your life, good or bad. And then take ownership in doing the required work that needs to be done every day.
That will not always be easy and will require discipline. But eventually, those behaviors will turn into a habit, and once you get to that point, those habits will be difficult to break.
Once those good behaviors are habitual, you will then start to crush one goal after the next. It will become second nature.
However, I will warn you that if you choose to take days off and slack when you don’t feel like doing the work, those bad habits will slowly but surely creep their way back into your routine. That can get tricky because you’ll start getting dopamine hits, which make you feel good temporarily but ultimately lead to you feeling like shit and back at square one.
It’s like when an alcoholic has been clean for some time and chooses to have one drink. It may not be the end of the world at that moment in time, but slowly but surely, that one drink will turn to two, then to four, then to 10, and then they find themselves dependent again. It might not happen overnight, but in time, those drinks accumulate.
Old bad habits then replace the good ones that you worked so hard to build.
The same goes for the way you eat, train, sleep, work, etc.
Do whatever it takes to ensure that these old bad habits don’t find their way back to the surface. Because if you let them, they will surely take over.
We all have that voice inside of our heads telling you not to do the work. Joe Rogan calls it our “inner bitch.” It exists in all of us, but it’s our choice whether we listen to it or not. There are always going to be days where you don’t feel like training, writing, sculpting, building, or whatever your thing is that you know you should do. But when that voice, that inner bitch is telling you to chill out, that’s when you need to work twice as hard.
But please don’t misconstrue what I’m saying regarding training. You will need a few days here and there to recover. Recovery plays a major role in your training success, so I don’t want to put that stigma out there. But you’ll only need to recover when you’ve earned it. When you’ve worked hard consistently for months, that’s when you might need to listen to your body and take a day or two off.
But when you’re training for a week and say you’re taking a day off, that’s just you giving in to your inner bitch, so know the difference.
Your big takeaway from this article should be that in order to be successful in this life, you’ll need to develop the habits that will lead you to your goals.
Do your daily actions/habits align with the vision you have for your life? If not, recognize the changes that you need to make and do it over and over again until you succeed.
Motivation is great, exciting, and useful. There’s not much that’s better than getting fired up from a Rocky training montage and then doing work! However, that’s only temporary. So, recognize that your motivation will not last forever and use it to plan and develop the habits that will lead you to your goals.
Now, your next step is to be brutally honest with yourself and figure out what areas of your life need work. Then make the necessary changes and start working.
The recipe is simple, but the work is hard, especially in the beginning. But eventually, when the work becomes habitual, you won’t even think twice about getting it done. You’ll just do it.
I hope that this article helps you get to the next level in your life. If there’s anything I can do to help, drop a comment below or send me a DM on Instagram @chris_tutela. I’d be happy to give you some feedback.
Thanks for reading.
